“I ended up going to the hospital ’cause I was in excruciating pain. After 24 hours [they] did an ultrasound and realised that I still had placenta remains in my uterus. Then I had to have surgery so that they could remove it”.
Codie joins us on the pod for another addition to the ‘My Postbump Journey’ series. She’s a Darwin girl, a wife and mother of two young daughters. In this episode Codie shares with us her wins and unexpected postpartum struggles.
Let’s dive into the interview!
“Can You Tell Us About the Delivery of Your First Daughter, Kalani?“
“With Kalani, I had severe anxiety about giving birth. So I spoke to my midwife and I organised to have an induction at 37 weeks ‘cause I was like ‘para’ about going into labour naturally. A lot of people are against inductions, but for me, it gave me peace of mind because at least I knew what was gonna happen. Well, as much as you can. I had the gel that softens the cervix, the next morning they broke my waters and then after about two hours, I got an epidural and I didn’t really feel anything. So I kind of slept, it was very, um, relaxing.”
“It wasn’t a stressful experience at all. And then [at] about four o’clock, I said to the midwife, just check how dilated I am, because I feel pressure in my back. And she was like, oh, we’ll check in a little bit. And I said, no, no, just check now because I feel a lot of pressure in my back, even though I couldn’t feel pain, I could just feel the pressure”.
“And then they were like, yep, she’s 10cm. I didn’t even push with her ‘cause she just came so quick. And then she was born in like 10 minutes. So I actually didn’t feel any of it and it was very easy”.
“But then, I think after like five minutes, they pressed this button and.. there was a huge siren that went off and all of these doctors ran in and apparently I was bleeding out and I didn’t know what was going on. It was a bit scary. They took Kalani off me and [gave her to] my partner. And I think the scariest part was everyone else in the room’s reaction.”
“‘Cause I couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know how much blood I was losing and I couldn’t move ‘cause of the epidural. And then they ended up fixing it. I don’t exactly know what happened. It was a bit of a rush”.
“They stopped the bleeding and it was all good. And then I went to stand up and… I think I pushed myself a little bit too much and… as soon as I went to take a step, my other leg gave way and then I fell to the ground and my partner came in and caught me.. very chaotic. And then I was paranoid to walk after that. So I was in a wheelchair.. [for] the night. I had my first shower in the wheelchair ‘cause I was too scared to stand up after that, but yeah, that was pretty much the first birth”.
“What Was Early Postpartum Like?“
“The first few weeks I think were pretty easy. It was what I’d expected. I was only bloody for like a week and then it was kind of like everything slowed down and went back to normal. I didn’t have any tears or cuts or anything like that. So I was pretty lucky like that”.
“But then I think at like six weeks where you can start exercising I went to the gym, not to do anything strenuous. I was walking on the treadmill and it just was the weirdest feeling… I felt so much pressure”.
“I was like, what is going on? I was freaking out… so I was too scared to do anything. Even if I would walk for too long, like around the shopping centre, it was so much pressure that I just had to sit down..”
“I feel like no one else had spoken about that. So I thought that there was something wrong with me. And then I saw a doctor, I think at two months. And she was just like, no, it’s normal… just try not to exercise. And so I just didn’t exercise. Which I don’t think was good for my mental health at that point, but I was paranoid that something was going wrong.”
“I saw a women’s health physio. I didn’t think I had pelvic floor weakness ‘cause I felt fine. I physically felt fine when I’m just doing day to day tasks. But then when you start doing exercise and stuff like that, you can tell that you’ve got pelvic floor weakness and it’s easy to think that you’ll just go back to normal”.
“I started doing pelvic floor exercises and then I started to feel a lot better and a lot more confident to do exercise.”
“What Was Early Postpartum Like With Your Second Daughter?“
“It was good. It was just a bit hard, more so having Kalani at home ‘cause she had only started walking the week that Kaia was born. So she wanted to be held all the time and she was heavy”.
“It was really hard because I was like, I wanna carry you. I don’t wanna feel like you are being neglected, but I was just in so much pain. The after birth pain actually is intense after your second kid”.
“I didn’t really get that bad after pain with Kalani. So the after birth pain is your uterus shrinking back to its normal size after you give birth”.
“It was pretty good with Kalani… but with Kaia, my second daughter, it was every time I’d breastfeed. I was starting to get stressed out when I was having to breastfeed ‘cause I knew that pain was coming”.
“What Has Been the Biggest Challenge of Your Postpartum Recoveries?“
“After I had Kaia I was getting all of this extreme pain and I didn’t understand what it was. I started getting this sharp pain in my lower stomach and I thought that it was the afterbirth pain, but then it got worse.”
“I ended up going to the hospital ‘cause I was in excruciating pain. After 24 hours [they] did an ultrasound and realised that I still had placenta remains in my uterus. Then I had to have surgery so that they could remove it”.
“So I had to have the surgery [and] I had to stay overnight. And because of COVID I didn’t wanna have a newborn there”.
“So my partner had the two girls at home [and] I was away from them for 24 to 48 hours and during that time I wasn’t given a breast pump at the hospital. So I had lost my milk supply”.
“Then I had to come home and I couldn’t breastfeed anymore. And then you get so much judgement about not breastfeeding. I was already trying to recover from the surgery and in pain [because] my breasts were engorged because I wasn’t able to feed or pump”.
“That was probably the hardest thing ‘cause I just didn’t expect four weeks down the track that something related to the birth was gonna come up”.
So much goodness in this episode with Codie. She’s so open and honest about her experiences and shares it all with us.
To hear the full episode, search for ‘The Postbump Podcast’ wherever you listen to your podcasts!
To learn more about Codie you can check out her Instagram page @lifewith_thesteens
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